Whose scuffle with police after a...

MARQUETTE FRYE, 42,

December 25, 1986

LOS ANGELES — MARQUETTE FRYE, 42, whose scuffle with police after a traffic incident on a muggy summer night in 1965 ignited the Watts riots, died Saturday of pneumonia. The six-day riot -- the biggest insurrection by blacks in the United States since the slave revolts -- began Aug. 11, 1965, after Frye was stopped for drunken driving. During five nights of rioting, 34 people were killed -- 29 of them blacks -- and more than 1,000 people were injured. Frye said last year that he was tired of being referred to as ''the man who started the Watts riots.'' He said the incident had ruined his life.